The L Word(s)
by reluctantfangirl213
Summary: A one-shot considering Vane's reaction to the news about Eleanor and the mouthwatering spyglass teaser in the Season 3 trailer. Written for VaneEleanor Appreciation Week.


It was impossible to put into words how Charles Vane felt when he first heard the news about Eleanor. The worst part was how long it took him to find out at all. But that was his own fault. And he'd blame himself forever.

When he first returned to Nassau with Flint, his anger at her hadn't abated in the slightest. Well, it wasn't anger as much as stinging betrayal and throbbing heartbreak and aching self-loathing that he'd fallen for her tricks _again_. There was also the tiniest bit of anxiety over how she'd react to him killing her father. Richard Guthrie had been an awful parent and a first class piece of shit, but he had been the only family Eleanor had left. Would she attempt to punish him? Ignore him for the rest of their lives? The second option sounded far worse. _Idiot_ , he cursed himself. _You shouldn't give a damn. She locked you in the fort without a second thought. She left you to die._

Almost as soon as his feet touched the sand, one of the main gossips of Nassau rushed towards him.

"Captain Vane! Eleanor Guthrie-" the small man said excitedly.

"Is none of my fucking concern. I don't care if she wants to see me. I don't care what she's doing, or who she's allied with, or whether she's pissed about her father. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck," he snarled. _Yeah, you don't sound like you care at all. Well done Charles._

The man paled but tried to continue, "That's fine, but you should know that she's been-"

"Why does everyone think I give a damn about Eleanor Guthrie?! SHE'S NONE OF MY CONCERN!" he yelled, feeling the judgmental eyes of his crew on his back. He shoved past Flint, who was smirking that obnoxiously all-knowing smirk of his. _Fuck all of them._

For two days Vane shut himself off from the world to brood about Eleanor- _No, not Eleanor,_ he reminded himself for the hundredth time. He shut himself off to carefully consider whether he wanted to ally with Flint, to come up with strategies for thwarting English retaliation over Charles Town, and to muse about Rackham's new status as captain. If anyone attempted to disturb him, he threatened them with bodily harm until they left. Flint showed up at one point, looking even grimmer than usual, but Vane was tired of the crises that inevitably followed the other captain around. He threw a knife in Flint's direction-which he supposed probably wrapped up the alliance question.

After the second day of rum and solitude Vane started to worry. Eleanor had never left him alone for this long. She always sent for him as soon as he returned to Nassau. He personally preferred the times she'd burst into his tent herself, a volatile valkyrie either fueled by anger or lust. Whether it was to yell, to cry, to fight, to tackle him with an ever-unexpected rush of affection-she always came. Now, maybe the whole fort betrayal and father murdering thing was bigger than any of their previous fights, but Vane's head and heart pounded in tandem at the idea that this time Eleanor Guthrie might really be done with him. Certainly she must have been a little relieved that he was alive. Or at the very least that he'd saved Flint. She hadn't even sent any of her minions to do something stupid like try to arrest him for her father's death. _Something's wrong._

He shoved out of his tent and stalked to where his men ringed around a fire. The humidity and clamor instantly set him on edge. The crew's raucous yelling fell silent at the sight of their captain. He hated their somber faces.

"What?" he barked at them.

"Have you heard then?"

"Heard _what_?" The bad feeling intensified. He instinctively turned to look at Nassau-or what used to be Nassau. The place was absolute chaos. Bands of men in various stages of drunkenness swarmed the streets, the buildings, and the beaches. Whores and beggars and children swirled randomly through the fray, dodging brawls and vomit.

"The hell is going on? What the fuck is Eleanor thinking letting this-" he started to say to his men. He was running before he even finished the thought.

"MAAAAXXXXXXX!" Vane roared as he burst into the empty brothel.

Anne was leaning over the bannister half-dressed and she started for her sword before she realized who it was. Max calmly walked out of the shadows, frowning in distaste at the deserted rooms. With Nassau in disarray, the whores and men cavorted in the street or wherever else they felt like it-they hardly needed her brothel. She surveyed the figure before her. Vane looked awful-as usual-but the unrestrained panic in his eyes was new. Frankly, she was surprised it had taken him so long. She told him as much.

"Where is she? Is she-?" What had started as a fearsome snarl faltered into a question that the man clearly couldn't manage to fully consider.

She felt a bubble of surprise even though she shouldn't have. Charles Vane had loved Eleanor Guthrie long before-and clearly long after-she had.

"Not as far as I know. She just isn't...here anymore," she chose her words carefully as she mentally calculated how many days it had been since Eleanor had been taken. _Maybe..._ No, there was no way Vane could catch up with her, she realized with a sinking feeling. The poor man.

"What are you saying? She left? Eleanor would never leave Nassau." He was adamant, but a flicker of doubt in his eyes made Max feel another twinge of sympathy for him. She could lie and tell him that Eleanor left for a fresh start. Would it be easier on him if he thought she'd fled to get away from him and her father's death? Considering the alternative...probably.

"Not voluntarily," she paused, watching in morbid fascination as Charles Vane turned so white that she idly wondered if he would faint.

"The English took her," Anne said quietly from the stairs.

Charles upended the closest table and yelled something unintelligible. After smashing a few chairs, he finally calmed enough to pant, "How? When?"

Max surveyed the wreckage and wanted to be mad, but she had no doubt that the majority of the damage that had been done by Anne's words was not to the furniture.

She sighed as she told him, "Someone turned her in. Figured the "Queen of Thieves" would appease them for now. She's been gone about two weeks."

Vane sank into one of the unscathed chairs and buried his face in his hands. Loyalty wasn't her strong suit, but even Max would never have told anyone that she'd seen Charles Vane cry.

"I'll go get Jack," Anne muttered.

 _A Year Later_

As the ship approached, Vane stood on deck with the spyglass pressed to his eye. His knuckles whitened with his tightening grip. _That's impossible._

News of an approaching English ship had finally ended the suspense of whether the undoubted hanging of Eleanor, the burning of Charles Town, the Spanish gold, or some combination of those factors would bring consequences. This war ship, boldly flying the English flag, was unapologetic and blatant about its intentions. Vane had immediately boarded his new ally's ship, preferring to fight the inevitable from the sea. Once the fight got to Nassau he feared it would be too late for all of them. His men waited for him to acknowledge that the ship was close enough and to give the order to open fire. He knew that they were probably all going to die today. Even with a few other captains and their ships on his side, they were outgunned. He really could've used Flint, but the bastard had taken a turn from useful crazy to absolutely unfathomable madness.

He'd been scanning the deck of the oncoming ship, looking for the cocky bastard coming to take Nassau from them. Instead he'd hallucinated. That's what it had to be-the alternative was incomprehensible. Because it was her. Eleanor was leaning against the railing gazing at him. Or rather, at Nassau, she was too far off to see him yet. _She can't see anything. It's not really her,_ he chided himself. It couldn't be. She was dead or at the very least gone forever. For her, England was a death sentence. He'd long ago resigned himself to never seeing Eleanor Guthrie again.

So, of course the hallucinations would come back now, to taunt him in his final hour. He lowered the glass and blinked furiously. _Focus Charles. She isn't on that ship. Find the fucking captain._ As he raised it back to his eye he wasn't sure whether he was more afraid that she'd still be there or that she'd be gone.

The relief he felt as his glass focused answered that question. A hallucinated Eleanor was better than no Eleanor at all. The ships had drawn closer together now, enough that details were no longer indistinct. He drank in her face, her flowing blond hair, her slender form clad in a blue-gray gown. Vane hesitated, _Flowing hair? Gown?_ Eleanor had never dressed like that in her life and his previous opium-induced visions of her had never changed her appearance.

He exhaled so sharply that dark spots appeared in his vision. It was really her. Dizzying relief washed over him with the force of a rogue wave. She was alive and coming back to him. _Eleanor._

"Well? Ready to give the signal?" Teach paused and continued gruffly, "Are you alright?"

Turning his eyes reluctantly to his ally, Vane struggled to focus on the situation at hand. An image of their guns firing death towards the English ship suddenly nauseated him. The fire, the blood, the smoke- _Eleanor._ His mind drummed her name like a heartbeat.

"What? No! Fuck no. No signal. No guns. Just hold on a fucking minute," he snarled.

The glass went back to his eye. She was really there. What was he supposed to do NOW? Sacrifice Nassau for her? She would kill him at the very thought, but Nassau suddenly meant a lot less to him. And living to see tomorrow meant a lot more. He had to touch her hair one more time, lean in close enough to unsettle her and make her roll her eyes as a defense mechanism. Steal her breath and shut her up with a sudden kiss. _One more time._ It wasn't out of reach anymore. But how was she here? Why would they let her come back?

As he watched, a well-dressed Englishman approached her. He'd found the captain. Vane frowned at how close he was standing to her, but sickening understanding dawned all too soon. The captain in question leaned down to whisper something in her ear. He was touching her shoulder far too possessively. Then Eleanor was smiling up at him with a familiarity that made Vane want to hurl himself into the sea. _Of course. She found some other poor bastard to manipulate._ He punched the railing with enough force that Teach glanced at him askance.

Losing her to another man NOW, after all he'd gone through in the last year, suddenly seemed laughable. Would she help her new lover rule Nassau? Stop piracy? Hang Flint and...? Vane swallowed, wanting to feel sure that their history would keep her from playing a role in his own death, but that was a ridiculous notion. She'd do what was needed to survive-she'd proven it many times over. After all, he could be jealous and disappointed and relieved and angry all he wanted, but this mystery man could give her what Captain Charles Vane could never offer Eleanor Guthrie.

 _Legitimacy._

Eleanor struggled to contain herself as the wavering mirage of Nassau solidified. Until this moment she'd never expected to see this place again. Her eyes scanned the shore wildly though it was still way too distant to see anything clearly. She turned her attention to the watchdog ships acting as a floating, highly pissed off barrier between her and Nassau. Which of her old acquaintances captained them? One of them was Flint's ship-she was sure of it. _They made it home._ The tale of two pirate lords terrorizing and burning Charles Town had been an instant legend in London. She'd had little doubt which two men could be held responsible. She still wondered what could have ever make Flint and Charles work together.

The uninvited thought broke her rule: No thinking about him. But it was too late now. Her mind couldn't be distracted from what she really wanted to know. Was Charles alive? Was he here? Would she get to see him? Her traitorous body was failing to hide how much she wanted all of those things to be reality. She clamped down on her lower lip with her teeth and willed her thundering heart to settle. He wouldn't want to see her of course. Not like this. All dressed up and on the arm of the new governor of Nassau. At best he would laugh at her, but at worst-

She squeezed her eyes shut. He was going to hate her. She hated herself for serving her own interests first. _Again_. Still, she could handle seeing Charles hate her if that meant he was alive. _He won't be for long...thanks to you._

"We're getting very close, Eleanor," Woodes Rodgers said confidently as he approached. He leaned closer and in a rather unnecessary whisper continued, "Though we seem to have quite the fight ahead of us."

His threat of _You lie, you die_ , still echoed in her head whenever he spoke to her. He thought he owned her. Grinding her teeth at his pompous familiarity, she smiled as brightly as she could and stroked his ego with an "I'm sure you can handle it" before asking, "May I borrow your spyglass?"

He handed it over without argument and she tried not to seem too eager as she gazed through it. It would be unwise to clue him in on her attachment to one particular pirate. That was the only thing she'd managed to keep from him.

The ship she'd thought to be Flint's was not his. She squashed her disappointment and dejectedly skimmed over the others. _Maybe they didn't make it. Maybe they did and left Nassau to protect themselves. Maybe-_ Just before she lowered the glass in defeat she zeroed in on the closest ship. She didn't recognize the vessel, but the man standing on deck, gazing back at her through a glass of his own was more than recognizable. It was the face she'd been craving for twelve months. _Charles_. Of course he was leading the charge.

Her knees weakened and she felt tears spring to her eyes. To her unsurprised surprise she felt no animosity about her father's death, just utter relief. Flashes of caresses, kisses, knowing grins, and impassioned fights whirled through her vision. She tried to ignore that Rodgers was standing so close to her that she could feel his hot breath on the side of her face.

Did Charles see her too? That was a stupid thing to wonder. He lowered his glass as she watched. The betrayal on his face froze her overexcited heart. It was the exact face he'd made as she locked him in the fort. Why did she always end up hurting him? _You will turn on absolutely anyone. Won't you?_ A tear spilled over and clouded the lens until she had to lower her glass as well.

Rodgers was smiling humorlessly again. "You really love your home, don't you?" There was a menacing undertone of a threat to his words, but he was oblivious to the silent exchange that had happened just before him. Thankfully.

Eleanor blinked rapidly. "Yes. I do," she said tonelessly.

 _Love him._


End file.
